Zimmerman verdict protests: LIVE UPDATES

People demonstrate in Washington on July 20, 2013, one week after the acquittal of George Zimmerman (AFP Photo / Nicholas Kamm) / AFP

Nationwide protests continue in the US, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman, with demonstrations hitting 100 cities on Saturday as people demand justice for Trayvon Martin, 17, who was shot dead by Zimmerman out of apparent self-defense.

19:40 GMT: During a protest in Indianapolis, Pastor
Jeffrey Johnson told 200 attendees that the nationwide 'Justice
for Trayvon Martin' action is aimed at making life safer for
young black men, who are still endangered by racial profiling.
"The verdict freed George Zimmerman, but it condemned America
more," a member of the board of directors of the National
Action Network it cited as saying by AP.

19:11 GMT: Around a 1,000 people have participated in the
Trayvon Martin rally, which concluded in Washington, DC, the US
media reports.

17:55 GMT:"I've got four beautiful daughters. I want
them to look forward rather than behind their backs," Harlem
resident Maria Lopez, 31, told Reuters during the Trayvon Martin
rally in New York.

17:33 GMT: Thousands of 'Justice for Trayvon Martin' rally
participants march across the Brooklyn Bridge in New
York, Occupy Wall Street reports.

17:31 GMT: During his speech at the New York rally,
protest organizer Reverend Al Sharpton said he wants the Justice
Department to pursue a federal civil rights case against
Zimmerman.

"We are not coming out with violence, we are coming to
denounce violence. The violence that was perpetrated against an
unarmed, innocent man named Trayvon Martin," he stressed.

17:30 GMT: Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, has attended a
rally in New York, promising to create foundation in her son’s
name to help “other victims of senseless guns violence.”

“They need to change the laws that we all know need changing,
because they don’t work for us,” she said.

The woman stressed that her child wasn’t perfect, but he was no
burglar, adding that she’s “still the proud mother of Trayvon
Martin.”"Today it was my son. Tomorrow it might be
yours," she warned.

17:24 GMT: Jacksonville, Florida has become one of the 100
American cities where a rally demanding justice for Trayvon
Martin is taking place.
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17:22
GMT:&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/b&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/b&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/b&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/b&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/b&amp;amp;gt;&lt;/b&gt;</b>17:22 GMT: Protesters chant 'We want justice, not more
votes' in Los Angeles

Tuesday, July 16

21:10
GMT: During a speech to the NAACP on Tuesday, US Attorney
General Eric Holder condemned “Stand Your Ground" laws while
addressing the acquittal of George Zimmerman by a Florida court
in the killing of Trayvon Martin.

“These laws try to fix something that was never broken. The
list of resulting tragedies is long and, unfortunately, has
victimized too many who are innocent,” added Holder to
applause from the audience.

According to the Washington Post, over 30 states including
Florida have passed “Stand Your Ground” legislation, which allows
individuals to use deadly force if they feel they are in danger,
or if a serious felony is about to be committed.

Police in Sanford, Florida have previously noted that this law
was partly behind their decision not to arrest Zimmerman after he
shot and killed 17-year-old Martin, who was unarmed. Jurors also
discussed Florida’s Stand Your Ground self-defense law before
rendering their not guilty verdict in Zimmerman’s trial,
according to one of the jurors who spoke anonymously to CNN’s
Anderson Cooper on Monday night’s broadcast.

18:20
GMT: More than a dozen black preachers, led by controversial
activist Al Sharpton, gathered outside the Department of Justice
in Washington to announce that more than 100 demonstrations over
the Zimmerman verdict will take place over the weekend.

"People
all over the country will gather to show that we are not having a
two- or three-day anger fit," said Sharpton. "We don't
need consolation. We need legislation, and we need some federal
prosecution,."

07:30
GMT: Local media confirms that two people were injured and
nine arrested in Oakland protest march on Monday.

03:13
GMT:While
the mass demonstrations are unlikely to result in a new trial for
George Zimmerman, even under the Civil Rights jurisdiction of
federal law, they have already succeeded in changing the
conversation for the better, Professor Charles Rose, who teaches
Excellence in Trial Advocacy at Stetson University in Florida,
told RT.

“You
could look at the glass as half-empty or half-full. I prefer to
think that what it gets us in the United States to do is what
we, as a nation of immigrants, always need to do, which is to
talk about how we come together,” he said. “That issue
of race is always present in the United States and it gives us
an opportunity, once the emotion has run out, to give us a way
to talk about this in a way that can be positive for the
country in the long term."

“If the
achievement is to get people thinking about this and looking at
it critically, then it has already done that,” Rose
continued. “If the goal is to achieve a prosecution that
will ultimately result in the conviction of Mr. Zimmerman,
legally speaking, that is a phenomenally difficult thing to
accomplish.”

01:05
GMT:New
Yorkers continued to protest the Zimmerman verdict Monday night,
with hundreds marching from Union Square to Times Square. RT’s
Marina Portnaya, reporting live on the scene, estimated that
police outnumbered demonstrators 2:1 and, while no arrests were
made, the marchers made their presence known.

Monday, July 15

18:00 GMT: US Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed that
the Department of Justice is continuing to investigate the
Trayvon Martin case. At the same time, Holder told a convention
of Delta Sigma Theta that "Independent of the legal determination
that will be made, I believe that this tragedy provides yet
another opportunity for our nation to speak honestly about the
complicated and emotionally charged issues that this case has
raised."

16:30 GMT: President Obama distanced himself from a
Justice Department decision on whether to pursue charges against
George Zimmerman

15:28 GMT: An image has gone viral of slain civil rights
leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. adorned in a hooded sweatshirt
similar to the one worn by Trayvon Martin on the night of his
death. A copy of the image posted to Twitter by former Obama
administration advisor Van Jones has been retweeted over 1,500
times and has been attributed to artist Nikkolas Smith.

“The Dream will never die. It is more powerful than fear or
violence. It can never be swindled away or destroyed. It is one
of Love, and therefore timeless,” Smith says on his website.

14:22 GMT: The Los Angeles Police Department has halted a
citywide tactical alert put in place following Saturday’s
verdict. The Los Angeles Times reported that upwards of 100 LAPD
officers in riot gear were deployed the evening before in order
to deal with an unruly crowd of around 80 protesters. The event
ended in six arrests, the Times reported.

06:40 GMT: Oakland police declared protests following
Zimmerman’s acquittal to be unlawful assembly, according to local
media.

04:22 GMT: Los Angeles police are still on full tactical
alert. A Zimmerman verdict protest in Los Angeles has turned
violent, with police firing bean bag rounds, the LA Times
reports. LAPD Cmdr. Andy Smith said some demonstrators threw
rocks and D-cell batteries at police near the corner of
Washington Boulevard and 10th Avenue.

04:00 GMT: New York police reportedly arrested around 20
people in Sunday’s protests.

01:16 GMT: Watch the report on the NYC march for Trayvon
Martin by RT's Marina Portnaya.

00:20 GMT: Huge crowds protesting the Zimmerman
verdict are marching in Midtown Manhattan, RT’s Marina Portnaya
reports from New York. The demonstrators have walked into the
streets, blocking traffic. The crowd is chanting: "Off the
sidewalks. Into the streets."

Sunday, July 14

23:50 GMT: The petition to launch a civil rights case
against Zimmerman by the Justice Department has collected close
to 177,000 signatures, with a goal of 200,000.

23:18 GMT:The video posted on
YouTube shows scuffles between police and protesters who marched
for Trayvon Martin in Los Angeles. Gunfire could be heard in the
background of the spontaneous rally, which took place the night
the verdict was announced.

21:44 GMT:Close friends
of George Zimmerman have told Reuters that following the
acquittal he may go to law school to help other people like him.

Zimmerman’s
defense witness, John Donnelly, and his wife, Leanne Benjamin,
got to know Zimmerman in 2004 when he and an African-American
friend opened an insurance office in a Florida building where
Benjamin worked.

"Everybody
said he was a cop-wannabe but he's interested in law,"
Benjamin said. "He sees it as a potential path forward to help
other people like himself."

"I'd like
to help other people like me," Zimmerman told the couple,
according to Benjamin.

20:36 GMT:The US
Justice Department is evaluating whether it has enough evidence
to support further prosecution of George Zimmerman in federal
court, and whether it can do so after Zimmerman was acquitted.

"Experienced federal prosecutors will determine whether
the evidence reveals a prosecutable violation of any of the
limited federal criminal civil rights statutes within our
jurisdiction and whether federal prosecution is appropriate in
accordance with the department's policy governing successive
federal prosecution following a state trial," a Justice
Department spokesman said in a statement on
Sunday.

19:18 GMT:Barack Obama
has urged Americans to respect the verdict of the jury which
cleared George Zimmerman of the murder of African-American
teenager Trayvon Martin, as the US faces a second day of protests
against the acquittal.

“I know this case has elicited strong passions. And in the
wake of the verdict, I know those passions may be running even
higher. But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken,”
the US President said in a statement.

18:55 GMT:Hundreds of
people have gathered in New York’s Union Square to protest
against George Zimmerman’s ‘not guilty’ verdict.

18:25 GMT:Several
hundred people have flooded Chicago’s Daley Plaza to protest
George Zimmerman’s acquittal by a Florida jury.

17:46 GMT:Dozens of
people are gathering on the streets of Oakland to protest the
jury’s acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon
Martin, AP reports.

17:12 GMT:A second day
of protests has been scheduled countrywide for Sunday, with New
York, California and Florida earmarked as rally points.

"We're
going to raise our voices against the root causes of this kind of
tragedy,"Rev. Jacqueline Lewis of Middle Collegiate
Church in Manhattan told her congregation.